Enlightenment when there is a guru and there is suffering

[Sugarcoat]

12 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

Id say that enlightenment is a state of the human mind in which the barriers have dissolved and there is no absolute difference between reality and mind, object and subject; then the mind perceives itself as total, unlimited.

Not to be confused with solipsism, it doesn't mean that you are creating the others, just that the absolute limits have fallen, the relative limits always exist. You could think, well, I already know that the reality and me are one, can't be otherwise. Yes ok, but the difference is about perceiving it by default without any closure. 

Yea thats how I think of it too

[Inliytened1]

20 hours ago, Someone here said:

There is a teaching in the spiritual traditions that enlightenment cannot be reached merely through books, ideas, or intellectual understanding. The path demands something deeper: the guidance of one who has already walked through the darkness and emerged on the other side ,aka a guru or enlightened master.

The journey towards ACTUAL enlightenment begins when we face suffering that we cannot escape. This deep suffering strips away the identities and attachments we have built around ourselves until we are left standing before life with nothing to hide behind.

And then, when the student is truly ready, the teacher appears.

The guru does not necessarily come to save the student from suffering. Rather, the guru helps the student see through it. They point beyond the pain, beyond the story, beyond the identity that has been constructed around it. They guide the student toward the place where suffering turns into awakening through surrendering the ego.

It is not about seeking enlightenment as an escape from life. It is about meeting life completely:with its beauty, its terror, its grief, its hunger, its uncertainty and allowing every experience to burn away what is false.

When the student has reached the place where they are no longer merely looking for answers, but are truly willing to see, the teacher appears.

 

Without DEEP suffering, both physical and psychological, there is no possibility of even taking the spiritual path seriously, let alone becoming truly enlightened and realized.

If seeking enlightenment is treated as philosophical entertainment, or merely contemplating cool ideas about existence, you will never become actually enlightened. There has to be a genuine hunger for truth, or profound suffering that forces us to seek beyond our mortal body and this world.

 

Why do the two have to have anything to do with each other? You're correct though.  Both are necessary components but can be completely independent.  The master can't teach you suffering, nor can he provide enlightenment.  But if his words touch something somewhere, the combination is the perfect storm.  

But also you need to do the work.   Mediation, psychedelics, whatever.